The present invention relates to a method of managing a storage system included in an information processing system, and more particularly to the method of managing a system in a computer system having a plurality of computers interconnected with a plurality of storage apparatuses through physical mediums such as Fibre Channel and Ethernet.
In general, a computer system often used in an office, an enterprise or the like includes a plurality of host computers (each of which is referred simply to as a host) interconnected through a network like Ethernet. This network is called LAN (Local Area Network). The LAN may be connected with another network so that the LAN be built in a large-scale system, ranging from a regional system to the worldwide system as the largest area system.
With recent advent of the Fibre Channel that realizes a faster data transfer, the concept of a SAN (Storage Area Network) appears which includes a plurality of hosts connected with a plurality of storages through one physical communication line. If the SAN includes a plurality of hosts and storages like disk apparatuses interconnected therewith, all the hosts connected in the SAN may make access to one disk apparatus. Conventionally, one host can be connected with only one storage, while the SAN allows a plurality of hosts to make access to any storage so that the hosts can easily share any storage apparatus. This, however, leads to the complicated connections between the hosts and the storages.
In a case that a simply configured network includes a small number of hosts and storages, each user of the connected apparatuses can easily manage the apparatuses, so that a significant problem may hardly take place. That is, if a user replaces an existing apparatus with a new one and installs software into the apparatus, a problem may hardly take place. Even if a certain problem takes place, the user may relatively easily diagnose what kind of problem took place, and the problem does not have an adverse effect on so wide a range of the network.
On the other hand, in a large-scaled complicated network or a large-scaled LAN having LANs interconnected therewith, the adverse effect given by a possible problem ripples through the network and the search, and the diagnosis and the countermeasure of the problem is made more difficult. Such a large-scaled network needs a management by a skilled person. A network manager (referred simply to as a user) enables to obtain management data on the network and find out a problem on the management data or change the management data and thereby change settings of the system through the use of network management software.
In general, the network management software allows a user to more clearly view a logical connecting relation of the hosts and handle the hosts through a graphical user interface (GUI). For example, the U.S. Pat. No. 5,793,974 discloses the display system for managing the network and the method therefor. This publication proposes the method of dividing the hosts into groups (domains) and displaying each group (domain).
A new type of management software has been proposed which manages the storage apparatus in the SAN in the same manner as the host. This type of management software allows a plurality of hosts and storages interconnected with the Fabric Switch or the like to be graphically displayed. However, the function to be handled by this management software is merely to monitor each storage apparatus. For the storage apparatus, the management of a volume is more required rather than the management of the connected apparatuses.
In general, if a storage apparatus is larger in scale than a certain level, the storage apparatus includes a plurality of volumes. Each of the volumes may be accessed by a certain specific host or may be shared by a plurality of hosts belonging to a certain group, or may be commonly accessed by all the hosts in the system. That is, such volumes may be managed in various forms. Further, as a volume type, there is provided a block access device that allows an access from the host at a unit of 512 bytes. Or, in a storage apparatus called an NAS (Network Attached Storage), each device is allowed to be presented to the host as one file system.
Recently, the protocol called SCSI over IP that flows the SCSI protocol onto the LAN is made more and more standardized. The storage apparatus that has been located only on the Fibre channel may be thus connected onto the Ethernet that has interconnected the hosts with each other. It means that the storage management is likely to be more and more complicated. The conventional management software that manages only the LAN or SAN cannot cope with the complicated management of the storages.